ash and dust
by letrie
Summary: cora hale arrives in mystic falls with ash in her lungs and smoke in her hair / or that time cora grew up in mystic falls.
1. one

**title:** ash and dust  
**summary: **cora hale arrives in mystic falls with ash in her lungs and smoke in her hair / or that time cora grew up in mystic falls.  
**disclaimer: **i own neither teen wolf or the vampire diaries.

* * *

Cora Hale arrives in Mystic Falls with ash in her lungs and smoke in her hair.

She's a flurry of lanky ten year old limbs and cold scowls and sad eyes and Caroline Forbes – sunshine incarnate, future Miss Mystic Falls – takes to her immediately. _You're badass_, the blonde says, _but badass can play dolls with me, kay?_

Barbie isn't as fun as chasing Derek around the Preserve, Laura hot on her heels, but it's something to pass the time. They bicker over who gets to play Barbie and who's stuck with Ken and sometimes Cora smiles because maybe she's got Ken in her hand but she's got a real-life Barbie right in front of her.

Elena Gilbert is bubbly and sweet and kind and Cora automatically hates her because how can someone be that _nice _all the time, when there are families too burned to bury and houses haunted by ghosts with no form?

_It'll be okay. _Bonnie Bennett is a gentle soul with a smile that could light up all of Beacon Hills. Her grams sometimes tells Cora stories about witches and offers her herbal tea that tastes funny while Bonnie gets her costumes out from the closet. She'd laugh like Caroline does if she didn't remember Mr Deaton the witch who gave her lollipops after him and her mom had those long conversations in the back room that Cora never heard.

Sometimes, she thinks Bonnie's grams _knows_ about her. She's a smart lady – one who smells a little too much like alcohol and sadness, when Cora thinks about it – who gives her knowing looks around the full moon and whenever Cora gets too angry with the world.

She tries not to think about it too much, turns back to sunshine and waves a Barbie in the air with a smile that feels more real every time.

* * *

notes: i really am working on defender omg


	2. two

**title:** ash and dust  
**summary: **cora hale arrives in mystic falls with ash in her lungs and smoke in her hair / or that time cora grew up in mystic falls.  
**disclaimer: **i own neither teen wolf or the vampire diaries.

* * *

She watches a chick flick with Caroline when she's fourteen, curled up on the Forbes' couch with a bucket of Ben and Jerry's and decides that someday she wants to kiss someone in the rain and be chased through gardens and have pillow fights with someone she loves. It sounds beautiful, perfect, like the kind of thing she's been missing all her life – all fourteen years and seven months – and when she shares her thoughts with Caroline, the blonde giggles and nods her head and says something about Matt Donovan, the kid Elena Gilbert's practically been dating since diapers.

She wants to tell the blonde no, that's a fucking terrible idea, but she's a good friend so she nods her head and flashes her brightest smile – which she remembers used to be much brighter, and which she misses a little – and nods her head and starts planning ways to get him away from Elena-I'm-so-perfect-Gilbert.

Tyler Lockwood is sloppy and his kisses are too hard and his hands too rough but Cora figures this is it, what all those songs that Caroline loves and that Bonnie sings along to are about, this is love.

She gets sick after spending so much time in the rain and she trips in the yard and cuts her knee and pillows aren't so fun when they smack you right in the face.

Cora Hale turns her back on love and Tyler-stupid-Lockwood and chick flicks with her heart in her hands and tears on her cheeks.

She swears to herself, to the tree they carved their names in and a messily drawn heart, to Caroline over a box of chocolate, she'll never buy into that shit again.

* * *

notes: i feel a little like i should warn you that the time line for this is confusing and sporadic and most things will be in the wrong place-ish. but review?

Terans-DinosaurCostume: your reviews make me feel so fuzzy and warm inside, omg. anyway, believe me, i try so hard and ugh it always sounds stupid shush. anyway, you're flawless be quiet /pets ur face

Goddess of Night Eternal Faith: thanks for the review, hope you liked it!


	3. three

**title: **ash and dust  
**summary: **cora hale arrives in mystic falls with ash in her lungs and smoke in her hair / or that time cora grew up in mystic falls.  
**disclaimer: **i own neither teen wolf or the vampire diaries.

* * *

Her first full moon alone is a terrifying one.

It's late, and her new 'family' - bullshit, they're strangers, they'll never be _family _- have gone up to bed. She's been holding back for _hours_, crouched in a dark corner in her dark room with her head in her hands and a howl blooming in her chest.

It _hurts_. The absence of her pack is a hole, fuck that, it's the _grand canyon_, and it fucking _hurts_.

An anchor, she reminds herself, remembering days her momma would spend helping Laura find hers. Something to pull you back.

And little Cora Hale, just ten years old, sits there with amber eyes and clawed fingers and a not-yet-healed burn on her thigh, going through her memories. What does she have to bring her back? What does she have, period? _Nothing._

Her phone rings, all cheap and crappy and irritating, and Caroline's name crosses the screen. _Caroline_, she thinks, pictures the little blonde with the barbies and the sunshine-smile, a little girl who smells like daisies and warmth and supernovas, and feels herself calming down. _Bonnie_, she thinks next, trying, so hard, to be this girl who can control herself. Bonnie is shared exasperated looks and braces and curly hair always in a braid. She smells like magic and herbs and strawberries, Cora remembers blindly, and it's like she's trying to remember a person she's never met.

The images in her head are stunted, slowed by the wolf, but even as she calms down she thinks, _home._

It's not home, not even close, because home is a burned-out husk of a once-beautiful building and a family she can't even fucking _bury_, but it's close enough.

She thinks she could find a new home, and that's something, right?

It's something.

* * *

notes: i, don't. know.

Terans-DinosaurCostume: eternal tears, you are the cutest. but no, i'm not; look at this, it's all _bleh_. but thank you sweetie pie and i'm glad you like her, since i'll eternally adore her.


End file.
